It is insane to me that judges consistently rule that the constitution doesn't apply because there's a "border" within 100 miles.

The 4th Amendment says, exactly:

   The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United...

> It is insane to me that judges consistently rule that the constitution doesn't apply because there's a "border" within 100 miles.

People keep misconstruing this.

The border search exemption only applies when someone is actually crossing a border, and it does grant broad authority to search whatever they're carrying with them at the time. The authority to do border enforcement within a 100-mile zone around borders does not grant a broad authority to search. It does grant a narrow authority to do things like traffic checkpoints, but those don't permit searches for anything smaller than a person without additional evidence.

I do think the ruling establishing the authority to run checkpoints other than actual border crossings was wrongly decided and harmful, but it's not what's at issue in this case.

So the main argument is that in the time that was written and immediately afterwards we can look to see what they mean by that by how it was implemented. At the time it was understood that the government could and would search goods as they enter the country without warrants to enforce things like tariffs. I think that's a fairly reasonable interpretation of the meaning. Where I think this goes wrong (and maybe deviates from history?) is the conflation of papers and other digital records now with physical goods, historically were people's papers searched as they entered the country (beyond say looking through them to find hidden goods, I mean reading and examining letters and records)?

Do constitutional rights apply to non-citizens? I always thought the constitution of the USA was for USA citizens, but then I'm not from the USA and am watching all this from very far away.

We gave the government the ability to police itself and there's no punishments for poor rulings.

The structure of the Supreme Court is foolish. It made sense initially, having the people who drafted the constitution adjudicate it. But I think it would be better to drop SCOTUS all together, letting the Federal courts sort out their disagreements via consensus. Or have a review panel setup like the House (elected, population based) who have the ability to override rulings and censure/discipline judges who make poor rulings.

Either way, we need more people involved in the process.

Also crazy that lake michigan counts as the border, despite being entirely in the US, so you could be minding your business in Fort Wayne, Indiana and have your phone searched for no reason.

Yeah the plain language is unambiguous. That there is an historical border search exception simply doesn't matter to me. We fought a war for this, and it's bullshit.

I mean... yea we also have some shaky interpretations of the 1st amendment (see especially, assembly), 2nd, 5th (e.g. the incredible pressure for plea bargaining), 6th (which, paradoxically, is a major reason for aforementioned pressure on plea bargaining, so I kinda get it), 8th given how bad some prisons are, arguably 10th (even if I am personally not a fan of the 10th amendment so much), and arguably still the 15th (though it's obviously orders of magnitude better than the first 100 years of its existence).

And also various other parts of the construction, like the interstate commerce clause does some comically heavy lifting.

Proximity to borders leaves the government the possibility that if it really, really wanted to search a property, they'd just have to cede some land in a 100mile radius to a foreign country and instantly create an international border wherever they need one.

The word "unreasonable" leaves the entire thing up to interpretation. Is it "reasonable" to search a traveler's phone with no indication of any wrongdoing? You'd probably say no. I'd say no. The courts say yes. Neither answer is objectively right or wrong according to this text.

If you torture the US constitution enough it will eventually confess.

There are a lot of issues that fail the constitutional grep test yet somehow they are deemed (un)constitutional. The constitution was written to protect the people and states from the overly zealous congress. Not to fix the situation in which the congress is so dysfunctional that the judiciary has to replace it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception apparently